


so close but not near

by benditlikepress



Category: NCIS
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s07e01 Truth or Consequences, F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, first person - journal format
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25710523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benditlikepress/pseuds/benditlikepress
Summary: Ziva, writing in her journals upon her return from Somalia, tries to fill in the blanks.
Relationships: Ziva David/Anthony DiNozzo
Comments: 12
Kudos: 28





	so close but not near

**Author's Note:**

> very different to my usual!
> 
> the prompt is from giveusourtivaprompts.tumblr.com, a new prompt every month! the August prompt was for a <1k fic set during Truth or Consequences that contained the line "you could have died" 
> 
> title is from forgiven/forgotten by angel olsen

Journal of Ziva David

2009

Summer/Fall #1 

_I am not sure this part of what happened counts as a new chapter. It was an inbetween time - a time where the realities of what had happened were not far away, but equally were not reality anymore. Not still summer but not quite fall as we travelled back to the States._

_I thought revisiting my journals and filling in the blanks of what has happened since I was last here would help me process it. Bring a form of closure. As with most things, it is not turning out to be as simple as it was when envisioned in my head. Strangely, this is the part of the story I am finding the most difficult to write. Much of what happened after we left the camp is a blur._

_We stopped off at a hospital but we did not stay long. The questions were intrusive and being asked too loudly and too quickly. I believe I walked out in the end, unsteady feet carrying me._

_They accepted I was not going to talk yet. Took me to where the plane was waiting._

_I remember moments of the long journey, here and there. The roar of the engine underneath our feet on the plane. Bile rising in my throat, because of turbulence or something else. I remember Tony, pretending he was not staring at me._

_I cannot remember where Gibbs and McGee were sat but the two of us ended up next to each other on the plane, fate intertwining us once again. I have never known him to be so stiff, the space between us only inches but stretching on for miles. I wanted to tell him it was OK - that he did not have to cower away from me, but every time I tried the words caught in my throat._

_Looking back now I understand why he was trying so hard, tiptoeing around me but trying constantly to engage me in conversation. He was trying to save something between us. Something he must have all but given up for dead. But my own mind was clouded - the reality of what he had just done affecting my ability to be receptive to anything surface-level he had to say._

_I must have fallen asleep at one point because I remember opening my eyes to find him staring at me in a way that made it clear I had had a nightmare. He said "It's OK" but still held himself away from me, gap between our bodies, as though scared how I would react if he reached out._

_I think I touched his fingers with mine, just for a moment. I can't be sure._

_The one vivid memory I have from that journey is how clouded my mind was on everything that had happened before the desert. It was as though it had happened to someone else - feelings displaced by blood and dirt and screaming and darkness. If there was one thing that remained, it was guilt. An immediate feeling whenever I looked him in the face and saw what he had done for me after what I had done to him. How could I tell him it was alright if he touched me, that I trusted him, after I betrayed his in the worst way?_

_I do not remember saying a word until we were far over the Atlantic. I stared at his dirtied face and told him "you could have died" and he blinked as thought that had not occurred to him until that moment. Or it was my voice, rather, that had taken him by surprise. When I hear it in my head now it sounds so quiet and strangled._

_I remember fixating on a small piece of broken-off plastic on the ground in front of us. I was sure Tony would be thinking me dazed as I stared at it, wondering where it had come from. Was it an essential part of its owner, or a meaningless extra? Would this piece being broken off change it irrevocably?_

_When we landed, it rolled under a seat. I wondered what that meant. If it was somehow a sign; a bizarre, material reflection of my own story._

_I needed sleep more than an answer. But it would not come all night._

_I found myself thinking of him, using him and abstract questions of where we might stand to push other more visceral memories from my mind. I resolved that same night the promise that I need to talk to him, but even as I sit here weeks later I find myself incapable of making the first move. Saying sorry is a given, but it is a hard emotion to combine with the realities of what has happened since. What we ended up going through - together and apart._

_He is right in his silent assessment - what exists between us has never been tangible but now more than ever it is hanging in jeopardy. For whatever else there is brewing under the surface - feelings I had denied for so long suddenly making a poetic reappearance, I could not ignore what had come before. Rebuilding that must come first. I try, whole-heartedly, to remind myself not to take stead from his own drug-induced admission. If he even remembers it._

_I am due at NCIS tomorrow to see Dr Bracco and begin my psychiatric evaluation. That is another issue that will require an entry of its own, but for now I know I must resolve this. If I see him tomorrow, I must take that as a sign._

_If this summer has taught me anything, it is that life is short. I cannot keep telling myself he will still be there waiting when I am finally able to form the words to state outright what I did and apologise. He deserves to hear that, if nothing else. I owe it to him after what he did._

_Even if that is all he will be willing to hear._


End file.
